Scorch
by spacebongo
Summary: His kisses were always slow and wet. And hot.


**Sometimes love isn't enough, sometimes the p****erson you love isn't worth it. This is a love story for all the girls out there who are not thin and pale and classically beautiful in the Victorian sense, and for all the boys who sometimes make mistakes but eventually learn from them. This is part of a series but each part can stand on its own.**

**-**

His kisses were always slow and wet. And hot. When he kissed me be it in the cramped supply closet behind his father's office or the dozens of luxurious hotel rooms that he specifically booked for us; he always made me feel as though he had all the time in the world for me even if the reality was very different.

But the night everything changed things were different.

His kisses were rushed and hard his teeth biting into my bottom lip even as his fingernails scored through my hair to leave burning trails on my scalp. His tongue, always demanding, fought with mine until I had no choice but to take it between my lips and suck. I sucked it as hard as I sucked his cock fifteen minutes previously and he bruised his pleasure into the insides of my thighs with a deep staccato rhythm that made me see stars.

"Wow," I gasped into his mouth as his seed cooled inside me and against the tops of my thighs. Never one for words afterwards he smirked lazily and after a quick swipe of my swollen bottom lip with his tongue collapsed onto me. "Rough day in the office?" I gently wound my fingers into his bronze hair.

"You could say that," He closed his eyes and we were so close that his eyelashes brushed against my cheek. "I proposed to Tanya. She said yes by the way," He continued before I could get a handle on my emotions. "I think she wants a summer wedding but we haven't set a date yet. I just," He clutched at my waist tightly, his hands bruising finger shaped welts into the flesh. "I don't want things to change between us. What you and I have is different."

"Right," I managed to choke out through the sudden tightness in my chest. I felt humiliated and angry and ashamed and so much more emotion that I could not even hope to describe, but more than anything I felt stupid.

I had found the Tiffany's box in his coat pocket last week. We were at my place and he was fast asleep in my bed after a long day at work and an even longer night spent chauffeuring Tanya to various society events, and when I held the box in my hand it had not even occurred to me that it was not for me. I even tried on the three carat pink diamond inside—it had been a tight fit but I had assumed we could go together to the shop to get it resized—and imagined how he would proposed. I did not think he would go down on one knee; Edward was not the type to kneel for a woman no matter how much he loved her. Perhaps he would slide it across the break room table as we ate takeout at the office and tell me to put it on a chain so nobody at work knew we were…

I bit my lip when tears welled up in my eyes. We had never gone out on a single date. Fourteen months of sneaking around and every time I had so much as hinted at going out he clammed up. I felt ridiculous expecting a man, with a girlfriend no less, to propose to me when he hadn't so much as asked me out for coffee before ramming his tongue into my mouth.

"This changes nothing," He wiped a stray tear with his thumb, "I still love you. Sometimes more than I can bear but I can't marry you." He inhaled sharply. "I'd become a laughing stock and I can't afford that. Not at this stage of my career. Tanya is…"

"Perfect?" I asked bitterly, remembering the afternoon he came to my apartment in tears after she walked out on him the night after his mom's funeral. He had been devastated and clung to me like a child for the entire day.

"Tanya is far from perfect and you know it," He said through a clenched jaw, his body tensing over mine. "She just…"

"Looks better on your arm," I pushed him off me and sat up, my eyes darting to find the quickest escape route even though we were in my apartment. "I get it."

"No you don't," He grabbed my arm before I could move, pinning it firmly to the bed in a bruising grip. It hurt and I tried to pull away only for him to grip harder. "Do you know what they call you at work? Jelly Belly. They laugh when you walk past their cubicles and snicker when you eat in the break room even though you eat healthier than any of them…"

"I'm a size eight. That's hardly huge," I ground out and he yanked me forward by my arm until I was almost on his lap.

"Did you know that when Jacob Black kissed you under the mistletoe last Christmas he was ridiculed for three months? They called him a chubby chaser," He said 'chubby' as though it was the most vulgar word in the dictionary and I bit my suddenly trembling lip. I had thought he liked my curves, enjoyed them even, because he could never resist touching them even when we were in public—a barely there touch to the swell of my hip, a sneaky pinch to my ass, long molten glances to my breasts when he thought nobody noticed.

"You said I was beautiful," I whispered brokenly and he touched my mouth gently with his fingertips.

"You are to me," Edward whispered hotly as his lips soon joined his fingers for a scorching kiss that took my breath away, "But I need to make partner, Bella. I can't do that by marrying you. Tell me you understand, please."

I knew that I deserved more that what Edward could give me, that being with Edward would eventually break my heart and destroy my self-esteem, but I was irrecoverably and irrationally in love with him. And he loved me back, he had said so as we sat curled up on my living room couch three months ago; I think part of me hoped we would eventually get past this. That once he was made partner he would finally break up with Tanya and marry me.

A darker part of me thought viciously that perhaps this (whatever this was with Edward) was the best that I could ever hope for because a man as gorgeous as Edward ever goes for a girl like me in real life and that I should feel grateful for any attention at all.

I don't know the real reason why I chose to tell him that I understood but I did and that declaration changed everything. The relationship between Edward and I was never the same again.

-


End file.
